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Mark Elliott
There are many things that distinguish the United Kingdom from its continental neighbours. One of them is the absence of a written constitution. Another is the absence of a high-speed rail network of the type that many European countries built decades ago and now take for granted. The latter gap may be filled by the construction of HS2, a new high-speed railway that is intended to link several major English cities. In contrast, there is no immediate prospect of a written constitution. However, the decision of the UK Supreme Court in R (HS2 Action Alliance Ltd) v. Secretary of State for Transport (HS2),1 in which the decision to go ahead with HS2 was challenged, arguably points towards a British constitution that while still unwritten, in the sense of there being no uniquely authoritative governing text is richer and more complex than is usually supposed. And while it would be going too far to suggest that the HS2 case is as transformative of the UK's constitutional landscape as the HS2 network might be of England's rural landscape, the constitutional implications of the Supreme Courts judgment are nevertheless highly significant
